This little preliminary to the Entertainment was locked in Edgar’s bosom, and never betrayed to anyone. To tell the truth, his mind was much too full of more important matters to think upon any such inconsiderable circumstance; for he was not the Apostle of the Shop, and had no scheme to justify and uphold in the eyes of all men and women. Edgar, I fear, was not of the stuff of which social reformers are made. The concerns of the individual were more important to him at all times than those of the mass; and one human shadow crossing his way, interested his heart and mind far beyond a mere crowd, though the crowd, no doubt, as being multitudinous, must have been more important. Edgar turned his back upon the establishment with, I fear, very little Christian feeling towards Tottenham’s, and all concerned with it--hating the Entertainment, weary of Mr. Tottenham himself, and disgusted with the strange impersonation of cruelty and selfishness which had just been revealed to him in the form of a woman. He could not shut out from his eyes that thin white face, so full of self, so destitute of any generous feeling. Such stories have been told before in almost every tone of sympathy and reprobation; women betrayed have been wept in every language under heaven, and their betrayer denounced, but what was there to lament about, to denounce here? A woman sharp and clever to make the best of her bargain; a man trying legal cheats upon her; two people drawn together by some semblance of what is called passion, yet each watching and scheming, how best, on either side, to outwit the other. Never was tale of misery and despair so pitiful; for this was all baseness, meanness, calculation on both hands. They were fitly matched, and it was little worth any man’s while to interfere between them--but, O heaven! to think of the other fate involved in theirs. This roused Edgar to an excitement which was almost maddening. To think that these two base beings had wound into their miserable tangle the feet of Clare--that her innocent life must pay the penalty for their evil lives, that she must bear the dishonour while spotless from the guilt! Edgar posted along the great London thoroughfare, through the continually varying crowd of passers-by, absorbed in an agitation and disquiet which drove all his own affairs out of his head. His own affairs might involve much trouble and distress; but neither shame nor guilt was in them. Heaven above! to think that guilt or shame could have anything to do with Clare!